SPECTACLES

What follows is excerpts from my book
Theatres of Capitalism (Boje, 2002c), an all conference paper on Enron presented
in London in July (Boje, 2002a), an Academy of Management conference paper
presented in August (Boje, 2002b), and a paper my colleagues and I have under
review (Boje, Rosile, Durand, & Luhman, 2002). Please read and reference
the original papers (See References).

At least 5 antenarrative version contend, as
the legend of the Enteron continues to unfold

Vader’s ‘Gas
Bank’ 1990-2001

There is disputed ownership of the Gas Bank
idea; the idea morphs into the trading floor concept; it is a way to
not repeat G, but does.

DIFFUSE SPECTACLES

Near Death Greenmail
1987

Jacobs & Leucadia could have liquidated
Enron with a successful takeover, but Milken of Drexel Burnham Lambert
intervened.

Mark the Shark builds
Global Empire 1991-2000

Stories of oppression, the beating of villagers
in India, and other antenarrative tales of resistance never pierce the
charade of globalization-success; Mark is Skilling’s rival, until
he forces here out (a scenario he denies).

INTEGRATED SPECTACLES

Cowboy Capitalism 1985-2001

Antenarratively connected to G (Valhalla Rogue
Traders) and morphs into F (Masters of the Universe).

Masters of the Universe
1998-2001

Appears to mimic Bonfire of the Vanities, ostentatious
gala events and life styles of the rich and famous

MEGA SPECTACLES

Valhalla Rouge Traders
1985-1987

Before there was Enteron or Enron, in the formative
days of the Houston Natural Gas merger with InterNorth, a third “rogue”
entity sold oil futures in a city called Valhalla.

Greek Mega-Tragedy 2001-2002

A through G are intertextual to the succession
of Greek (and Shakespearean) tragedies that become antenarratives of
the collapse of Enronomics.

Above Figure of Lay provides
a graphic depiction of the intertextuality among the antenarrative clusters.
The idea is the antenarratives of one cluster migrate and interpenetrate with
those of other clusters. The Key at the bottom of figure gives examples of
antenarratives that move in-between the clusters listed in the tables.

D:H Oppressive tales of villagers in India
do not play on center stage until collapse

D:F Mark’s global capitalism plays into Masters of
the Universe

H Each of the antenarrative clusters reemerges
in post-collapse inquiries

There are antenarrative relations
before the megaspectacle “H” became a ground zero and it became
fashionable for reporters to research trials of campaign contributions. Each
of the antenarrative clusters in Figure 1 is part of rhizomatic relations
between the clusters. The structure of the presentation is, to use critical
dramaturgy theory to analyze eight antenarrative clusters. I present and order
them by their type of spectacle, rather than trap them in a linear chronology
(See Appendix B for definitions). The point is not the chronology, but the
intertextual weave across the antenarrative clusters, how early ones seems
to go dormant and achieve resolve, only to re-appear again as ghostly characters,
themes, and frames thought to be dead and buried. We begin with two concentrated
spectacles (weaving them to others as we go).

A critical dramaturgy analysis of
Enron reveals how megaspectacles played in public Metatheatre to teach cathartic
lessons of pity and fear (do not be an Enronite) to millions of spectators,
who could confidently replug into the resanctified first three spectacles
of concentrated illusion, diffuse global predation, and integrated hyper-reality.

Concentrated
Spectacle Example

"The concentrated spectacle"
says Debord, "belongs essentially to bureaucratic capitalism" (#64).
The concentrated spectacle is where both production and consumption are constructed
in a totalizing self-portrait of power that masks its fragmentation. It is
the “vast institutional and technical apparatus of contemporary capitalism…
all the means and methods power employs, outside of direct force… while
obscuring the nature and effects of capitalism’s power and deprivations”
(Best & Kellner, 1997: 84).

There are two concentrated spectacles,
Enteron and Vader’s Gas Bank, and these resurface in the other types
of spectacles developed in Boje (2002a). Enron’s 6th floor is a third
example. It becomes a Metatheatre stage (between 1998 and 2001), to simulate
a real trading floor. It’s expensive theatre, $500 to set up each desk,
and more for phones in this stage-crafted spectacle, and more for the 36-inch
flat panel screens, and teleconference conference rooms; the entire set was
wired by computer technicians who feed fake statistics to the screens. On
the big day several hundred employees, including secretaries, played their
rehearsed character roles, pretending to be ‘Energy Services’
traders, doing mega deals, while Jeffrey Skilling and Kenneth Lay played their
starring role in the Enron Dramatis Personae to a target audience of invited
Wall Street analysts, who can not tell real from fake.[END
NOTE]

Enron is Metatheatre as a way to control
and motivate employees using the technology of theatre; several times a year,
Enron hired choreographers and dramatists (Banerjee, 2002)[i] to coach executives
in character roles in elaborate corporate extravaganzas; executives and staff
would dress in Star Wars or other costumes; executives would enter the ballroom.

Diffuse Spectacle
Example

The "diffuse spectacle"
says Debord, "accompanies the abundance of commodities, the undisturbed
development of modern capitalism" as it reaches into every nook and cranny
(#64). Spectacle illusions overtake and cover over the reality of material
conditions, the world backstage.

For example Rebecca Mark’s globetrotting
visits on the Enron jet, became a road show complete with an entourage of
WB, WFO, IMF, CIA agents mixed along with Mark’s hair dresser, make
up artist, and a flock of assistants. When Mark landed, the force of the Whitehouse
landed with her. In Congressional Metatheatre, we are easily distracted in
the who-done-it spectacle, from looking any deeper into the spectacles of
the Theatres of Capitalism, into the embedded relations between Politicians,
Business College, and Enron-type corporations.

Integrated
Enron Spectacles

The third form of spectacle is the
“integrated spectacle” that combines aspects of the concentrated
and diffuse forms in the fatalism of global capitalism, where resistance if
futile (Best & Kellner, 1997: 118).

Megaspectacle
Enron Examples

My thesis is that the latest scandals
repeat many antenarrative elements of Enron megaspectacles enacted 15 years
earlier (Boje, 2002a). Megaspectacles sensationalize scandal in media extravaganzas
such as Watergate, the Rodney King video tapes, the O.J. Simpson chase and
trial, Clinton sex scandals, the Gulf War, the funeral of Princess Diana,
the Elian Gonzalez sage, the collapse of the World Trade Center, the War on
Terror, and now Enron. But beneath Megaspectacles is the rest of the iceberg,
the other three types of spectacle. The more recent Megaspectacles are interactive,
with media competing to provide websites where cyber-spectators can replay
simulations on the new stage of the spectacle (Best & Kellner, 2001: 226-233).
Enron has become the current negative megaspectacle, a cautionary tale offered
as daily entertainment.

People believed the hype of the 1990s
that the break-up of the electric utility monopoly would usher in free market
capitalism’s New Economy world of cheaper energy. Even after the October
16 2001 write-down, analysts were still telling the Emperor how fantastic
he looked in his new clothes.

Figure 2 illustrates some key events
that occurred as the stock price, reputation, and power of Enron collapsed.
The masquerade allowed Enron to make its façade believable metatheatre,
but some contextual events happened that put the pressure on. First, on April
14 2000 the Internet Bubble, by all accounts, did burst. Second, the trades
in gas and electricity contracts were as many as before, but not as profitable.
Third, the search for new markets to deregulate and exploit did not produce
any winners. Fourth, the off-the-balance-sheet partnerships, as a place to
hide weaker deals and debts had become an addiction; this worked as Enron
stock prices rose, but since the debt was guaranteed by lots of Enron stock,
falling prices made the risk higher and higher. So for these reasons it is
a wonder that Enron’s stock continued to rise until it hit its peak
in August at $90.56; then came the steady fall from grace.

In May 2001 J. Clifford Baxter, by
police accounts, committed suicide; some say it was a better choice for a
man of pride, than to face a Congressional hearing or an SEC inquiry. Straight
out of Shakespeare’s Othello, the chief strategist and former Vice-chairperson
who abruptly resigned last May seemed haunted by allegations of Enron’s
wrongdoing, a class action suit, Congress subpoena, about the bankruptcy and
shady financial dealings, got up early on January 25th, left his $700,000
home in affluent Houston suburb of Sugar Land, got in his brand new Mercedes
Benz, drove a short ways, pulled over and shot himself once in the head with
a 38 caliber revolver, leaving his suicide note. The irony is Baxter was among
the very few Enronites who like Watkins raised objections within Enron about
accounting praxis that inflated profit reports.

At the August 16 company-wide meeting,
Lay invited anyone troubled by Skilling's departure to meet with him. On August
20 Watkins called a friend at Arthur Andersen (AA) and asked for advice. The
next day, her AA friend drafted a memo detailing Watkins' concerns about Enron.
Meanwhile, Watkins went to Lay seeking a meeting. See Dialogs Section of Web
Site for analysis of Watkins memo and Enron's law firm's response.

I analyzed (See Boje, 2002a) 9,784
news articles on Enron. There were 3055 items about Enron and scandal in the
popular press, 3685 linking Enron and Arthur Andersen, 1153 linking Enron
and President Bush, 1607 calling Enron fraud, and 384 articles linking greed
to Enron. Figure 3 gives a visual display of the themes and rhythms (see Septet,
Table 1) that play out in the “H” antenarrative cluster. After
Enron went into bankruptcy there was a brief flurry of articles about fraud
in the last weeks of 2001, followed by another flurry of interest in fraud
as the SEC, Justice Department and congressional hearings began in February.
One has to ask, why are there so few critical articles on Enron from 1985
until the December 2001 bankruptcy? One explanation is that due to the institutional
arrangements: campaign contributions and appointments of officials from Democratic
and Republican parties; Wall street analysts getting paid to serve on Enron’s
advisory boards or working for firms with Enron loans or stocks; Arthur Andersen
with offices inside the Enron building and consulting fees outstripping their
audit fees, etc. News is not reported when it happens, but when the institutional
network says that news happens. Put Figures 2 and 3 together, and you see
that any beginning business student could se that the stock is plunging at
an accelerating rate, well before the bankruptcy, before the SEC noses around,
and before Skilling resigns. More than one analyst and reporter were reprimanded,
reassigned, or fired, when they tried to file stories critical of Enron; in
the news game, one waits until a major institution such as the SEC, Justice,
or Congress is investigating a major corporate hero, before the media dogs
are unleashed.[i].

For Congress and the public, Sherron
Watkins is scripted as a national folk hero, a manager who dared to tell the
truth to the boss. One ready-made consumption of the Watkins’ memo is
as theatre of confrontation, exposing Skilling’s confidence trick, so
spectators to the Congressional hearings could now see the ‘star’
of the New Economy was poised on the edge of the abyss, would trip into the
abyss and implode in a wave of accounting scandals. Congresspersons would
utilize Watkins’ memo and her dramatic testimony as proof that Enron
executives were swindlers; all too aware of the games they were playing. “Andrew
Fastow would not have put his hand into the Enron cookie jar without the explicit
or implicit approval of Mr. Skilling,” Watkins said at one hearing where
she was seated at the same table as Skilling. And Mr. Skilling she said “put
the fox in charge of the hen house.”[i] Watkins is writing a book titled,
“Power Failure” about the Enron spectacles.

However, the focus on fraud subsided,
as Andersen’s relation to Enron unraveled in stories of shredding and
non-transparent auditing practices. The greed line (the lowest line on the
figure) picks up a bit of steam in early 2002. In the early going, the Enron
scandal was all about the Whitehouse links to Bush, the administration, Republicans
and then Democrats. However, as the Bush administration emphasized that the
Enron scandal was a business scandal and not a political one, reporters turned
their attention on Andersen, and the Enron Scandal (darkest line in the figure)
drew less attention. In short, megaspectacles have an antenarrative trajectory
and are intertextually influenced by other megaspectacles.

As Skilling evokes his denial, “several
financial officers screamed at the” TV set, "Bullshit!" (Brenner,
2002). And another Enron officer watching the TV, says, "Now Jeff will
say, ‘I don’t recall,’" and 27 times Skilling did not
disappoint him” (Brenner, 2002). These Enron executives, who had cheered
Skilling when he was named C.E.O., now critically review his megaspectacle
performance.

PUNCH LINE

“Politicians have always known
that the spectacle of the mighty brought low can appease an angry public”
(Gearan, 2002: D1) [For reference and more on this point see Boje 2002b).
My thesis here isthe Enron, Andersen, and WorldCom spectacles are being plotted,
characterized, themed, into dialogs and rhythms, that metascript the Metatheatrics
to appease an outraged public, fearful their own fortunes are being reversed.